The Slovak language is a West Slavic language. Historically, it forms a dialect continuum with Czech. The written standard is based on the work of Ľudovít Štúr, published in the 1840s and codified in July 1843 in Hlboké.
Theories about the origin Older hypotheses and theories Centrist hypothesis The centrist hypothesis was popular in the 19th century when it played a positive role in the Slovak national movement. According to this theory, Slovak is the remnant of the Proto-Slavic language spoken in the Middle Danube region before the great migration of the Slavs. This hypothesis is based on Nestor's Primary Chronicle and was supported by Matej Bel and several notable members of the movement, like Pavel Jozef Šafárik, Anton Bernolák and Ľudovít Štúr. Most modern scholars oppose the opinion about the Slavic homeland being in the Middle Danube, but the theory was revived in the 20th century by the Russian linguist Oleg Trubachyov.
Nonhomogeneous origin The theories about the nonhomogeneous origin of Slovak assume its late integration in the 13th to 14th centuries or even after the 16th century. They claim that the Proto-Slavic basis of Slovak emerged on the border of early Western, Southern and Eastern Slavic macro dialects or that Slovak emerged from early or late mixing of neighboring languages. A prominent Slovak linguist, Samuel Czambel (1856–1909), believed that Western Slovak dialects are derived from early Western Slavic, that Central Slovak dialects are remains of the South Slavic language area (Czechized over centuries) and that Eastern Slovak dialects come from Old Polish and Old Ukrainian. Samuil Bernstein supported a similar theory. István Kniezsa suggested a mixing of languages in today's Central Slovakia after the Mongol invasion of Europe and Ottoman wars, thus forming modern Central Slovak dialects. The opinion about the late integration is not compliant with the current state of knowledge about the development of Slovak dialects from Proto-Slavic.
Homogeneous origin This theory was proposed in the interwar period by Czech linguists František Trávníček and Václav Vážný. Its proponents believed that Slovak and Czech emerged from a common Proto-Czech-Slovak (Proto-Czech). Trávníček explained unique features of Central Slovak dialects by later differentiation, Vážný, by expansion from the south. Trávníček's attempt to explain the origin of Slovak from Proto-Czech-Slovak is now thought to be erroneous, and the creator of the theory abandoned it already after World War II.
Modern theories Modern theories are based on a nonhomogeneous Proto-Slavic basis of Slovak. The prevailing theory is the migration-integration theory of Rudolf Krajčovič.
Migration-integration theory Rudolf Krajčovič suggests three phases of development: post-migration period (5th–7th centuries): the Slavs came to present-day Slovakia from various locations; Western and Eastern Slovakia was settled by people who spoke Northwestern (West Slavic) Proto-Slavic dialect, Central Slovakia by speakers of the Southeastern (non-West Slavic) dialect. integration period (8th–9th centuries): several language features (both West and non-West Slavic) spread across the borders of the initial linguistic regions; these changes are best explained by the integration process of the Slavs before and during the existence of Great Moravia. constitutive period (10th–11th centuries): After the extinction of Proto-Slavic, Slovak began to evolve as a separate Slavic language.
Koine theory This theory was proposed by a Slovak linguist Martin Pukanec. According to Pukanec, the migration-integration theory does not explain the presence of old isoglosses around Nitra, one main old political center. The main idea of the theory is koineization, a formation of a super-dialect (koiné) on the border of the West Slavic and the South Slavic dialects. The koineization on the border of two dialects may have been very rapid with many dramatic changes, possibly even two or three in one generation.
The author suggests the following chronology: an early integration period (6th century–833) koineization (833–907): The four phases of koineization correspond with the phases of development of Great Moravia. constitutive period (907–1110): The koiné was disintegrated, and the tribal system finally became extinct.
The arguments for this theory are mostly indirect.
Emergence and development Heterogenous Proto-Slavic basis of Slovak The Proto-Slavic basis of Slovak included both West Slavic and Non-West Slavic features. Some West Slavic features are common for all Slovak dialects, but there are also Non-West Slavic features that are distributed over 70–75% of the territory. The Central Slovak dialects exhibit major deviations from what is generally thought of as West Slavic.
{| class="wikitable" |+ class="nowrap" | West Slavic features !scope="col" style="width: 15%;" |Territorial distribution !scope="col" style="width: 30%;" |Feature !scope="col" style="width: 15%;" |Example !scope="col" style="width: 40%;" |Comparison |- |rowspan="3"|common feature | preserved Proto-Slavic kv-, gv- before old Slavic ě | (flower, star) | , vs. , |- | missing epentetic l | (earth) | , vs. or |- | c, dz instead of tj, dj | (candle, boundary) | , vs. , |- |rowspan="4"|mainly West and East,nowadays partly also the Central Slovakia | dl, tl preserved in nouns | (awl) | , vs. Central Slovak dialects: |- | rot-, lot in place of Proto-Slavic ort-, olt- | (grill, elbow) |, vs. Central Slovak dialects: |- | š in place of Proto-Slavic ch| (Czechs, bridegrooms) | Central Slovak dialects: |- |colspan="2" |and others |- |rowspan="2"|only Záhorie (the westernmost region of Slovakia)andEastern Slovakia | rъ, lъ in place of r̥, l̥ | (blood – Proto-Slavic krъvь) | , vs. other Slovak dialects: |- | suffix -ъmь in place of -omь | (with snake) | vs. other Slovak dialects: |- |rowspan="3"|only Záhorie | transformation iь > jь | (needle) | , vs. other Slovak dialects: |- | long vowels in place of old acutes | (cow) | vs. other Slovak dialects: |- | short suffix -a in nominative plural of neutral grammatical gender | (shoulders) | vs. other Slovak dialects
{| class="wikitable" |+ Non-West Slavic features !scope="col" style="width: 15%;" |Territorial distribution !scope="col" style="width: 30%;" |Feature !scope="col" style="width: 15%;" |Example !scope="col" style="width: 40%;" |Comparison |- |rowspan="4"|only the historic central area of Proto-Slavic basis of Slovak | simplified l instead of Proto-Slavic dl, tl | (awl) | , vs. other Slovak dialects |- | rat-, lat in place of Proto-Slavic ort-, olt- | (elbow) | vs. other Slovak dialects |- | s in place of Proto-Slavic ch''' | (Czechs, bridegrooms) | other Slovak dialects |- | preserved suffix -mo| ([we] bear) | vs. other Slovak dialects |- |rowspan="6"|also outside of the historic central area of Proto-Slavic basis, but mainly in the neighbouring areas |- | transformation iь > i| (needle) | , vs. in Záhorie |- | syllabic r̥, l̥ in words like kr̥v| (blood) | like vs. Western and Eastern Slovak |- | short vowels in the place of old acutes | (cow) | in Záhorie kráva|- | long suffix -á in nominative plural of neutral grammatical gender | (shoulders) | in Záhorie , in Eastern Slovakia (from the initial ) |- | suffix -omь| ([with] snake) | in Záhorie
Main changes in the Proto-Slavic basis In the 10th century, Proto-Slavic ceased to exist, and Slovak began to emerge as an independent language. The most important early changes were the contraction, the loss and vocalization of yers and the denasalization of ǫ and ę. These changes affected the word structure and phonemes. The loss of yers differentiated future Slovak, Czech and Polish from neighboring Slavic regions, and the denasalization differentiated Slovak and Czech from Polish. Slovak was not affected by old Polish dispalatization in the 10th century, causing differences between the two languages such as žena vs. Polish żona (a woman, a wife), kvet vs. Polish kwiat, etc. It was also not affected by the old Czech syllabic depalatization before hard syllables, with differences such as priateľ vs. Czech sg. přítel, pl. přátelé (a friend). Slovak preserved a difference between dz/z (from Proto-Slavic */dj/ */gtj/), i.e. medźa (medza, a boundary), vítäź (víťaz, an elite warrior, a winner) whereas both phonemes were transformed to ź in old Czech and dź in old Polish. Contrary to Czech, a vowel mutation from à to e did not occur in Slovak, i.e. ulica vs. Czech ulice (a street). The differences between Slovak and Czech like ťažko/těžko, cudzí/cizí became stable later. Slovak developed only single r in contrast with Czech pairs r/ř and Polish r/rz. Slovak evolved as an independent language already from the 10th century, and there is strong evidence against theories of its early or late formation from other languages.
Contraction Contraction was a change caused by a loss of j between vowels and their merging into one long vowel, for example dobroje → dobré (good) and bojati sę → báť sa (to be afraid). The contraction originated in the territory of Great Moravia in the last years of its existence and divided the Slavic territory into contraction and non-contraction areas. In Proto-Slovak, the contraction occurred before the disappearance and vocalization of yers, but not uniformly. In later Western and Eastern Slovak dialects, the change was similar to other West Slavic languages. The Central Slovak shares some old features with the South-Slavic contraction peripheral territory. The Central Slovak preserved more non-contracted forms (i.e. moja, moje vs. má, mé, bojati sa /dialect/ vs báť sa). The different process of contraction oje → oe → ô probably resulted also to the characteristic neuter adjective ending -ô (i.e. dobrô vs. dobré).
Loss and vocalization of yers The disappearance of weak yers and the change of strong yers is reconstructed by Havlík's law. The back yer (ъ) was vocalized as e in the Proto-Slavic basis of Western and Eastern Slovak (pętъkъ → pátek: Friday) and as o in the Central Slovak area (piatok). The weak yers did not disappear in one syllable words, but the back yer changed to a, and the front yer, to ä. This change occurred already in the 10th century like in other West Slavic languages, contrary to the neighboring East Slavic area.
Denasalization The Proto-Slavic nasal vowels ǫ and ę were denasalized in the 10th century. The nasal vowel ǫ was replaced by u and ú, i.e. zǫbъ > zub (a tooth), lǫka > lúka (a meadow) probably through an extinct nasal vowel ų: ǫ > ų > u/ú. The denasalization of ę was similar: ę > ą̈ > ä/a̋. These forms from the 11th–12th centuries have been preserved in some Slovak dialects until the modern age (Orava, Gemer and Sotak dialects). The central Slovak dialects preserved only the short form ä. In other dialects, they changed into many different monophthongs and diphthongs.
Phonology Changes in prosodic features The Proto-Slavic quantity was associated with specific vowels (long a, u, i, y, ě, ę, ǫ vs. short o, e, ъ, ь). The original quantity has disappeared or changed, creating pairs of short and long vowels a/á, e/é, etc.
The spirantization of Slavic /g/ to /h/ Early Slovak inherited the velar g from Proto-Slavic. The velar was preserved in the early stage of development, but it changed to h approximately in the 12th century. Unlike Czech, this change was not complete, and the original g has been preserved in the -zg consonant group at the end of words and on the border of morphemes, e.g. mozgy vs. Czech mozky (brains). The partial preservation of g in the phonetic system allowed Slovak to adopt g in later loanwords, for example gombík (a button).
Morphology Grammatical numbers